What a Life!

Please excuse my break from posting – I am berating myself for being such a coward…over and over and over again.

Case in point: People are more important than dogs.

Situation: Over at someone else’s house where there are two yappy, in-your-face, poodles that race around and jump on you like pesky flies – make that pesky horse flies (the ones that bite). When these poodles jump up on me, their front claws land on my thigh, close to the top. When they jump on my four-year-old…where do you think their claws hit?

So my children have never been fond of these dogs, but they have never been terrified of them either. Last weekend, however, my dear, cautious Ben, all of a sudden during the middle of our visit, became terrified of the dogs. As in, screaming hysterically, yelling for Mommy, crying frantically…you know, terrified.

Take 1: Dog owner #1 immediately takes the dogs and sends them outside. Child calms down.

Take 2 (a few hours later, we return to home where dogs live): Dog owner #2 (the one who really owns the dogs – you can be married and have “joint” ownership but things can actually belong to one person more than the other, if you know what I mean) is present this time, rather than just Dog owner #1. Dog owner #2 is told that child is deathly afraid of dogs and sends the dogs outside when child arrives. A few moments later, Dog owner #2 allows the dogs to come back inside. Child’s reaction is immediate terror – crying, screaming hysterically, downright scared to death of dogs.

Rather than banishing the dogs from the room immediately (I really don’t care where they go – outside, upstairs to the bedroom, out to the garage, the bathroom…just somewhere else, okay?), Dog owner #2 and others in the room made the following statements in random order (as in, I don’t remember what order, but I heard all of them):

• Dogs have already been outside for three hours today. [Real story] Dogs were in fenced backyard where they could run freely; weather is 80 degrees and sunny with an occasional breeze. Some dogs like outside all the time and are never allowed inside. [I kept my silence.]
  
• Child was not afraid of the dogs last time we visited. [My response…the gist of what I actually say…] Child was not afraid of dogs when we first arrived today either, but apparently some incident occurred that no one actually saw which caused child to all of a sudden be absolutely terrified of said dogs.
• Child is not afraid of neighbors dog. [Again, my response.] Neighbor’s dog is a laid-back, easy going dog – not a yappy, hyper dog that runs up to people and jumps on them incessantly.
  
• Child is not afraid of [our] cat. [Yet again, my response.] Again, a cat is not a hyper, yappy dog. Cat’s don’t jump up on you. In fact, said cat is so gentle that she allows dogs to chew on her – she has not even been known to scratch said child when he is rough with her.
  
• [People in room try to reason with child and tell him there is nothing to be afraid of.] You do not reason with a child that is terrified and screaming and hanging onto his mother for dear life. Sorry. Nope. Doesn’t work. [But I don’t say that. Instead…] I point out that said child has a fresh scratch on his nose which, considering where the dog’s claws hit when they jump on me, could very well be from one of the dogs. If a dog was running around all hyper and barking and jumping up on you and scratching your face with its claws, would you be scared?

Still, no one makes any move to remove the dogs from the room. In fact, Dog owner #2 who had been holding the most hyper-pesky dog tells the still screaming, hysterical, holding-onto-his-mother-for-dear-life child that she is putting the dog down and that he should not be afraid. Of course, the child’s frantic crying and screaming only makes him more interesting to the dogs and they will not leave him alone.

So what do I do? I take my child and I go outside with him. As in, the people leave the room while the dogs stay. Because apparently to some people, dogs are more important than people.

Then while we’re outside eating our pizza while everyone else is inside, watching the NASCAR race (I’m an avid fan) and enjoying adult conversation (something which I get very little of, it seems), Dog owner #2 decides to feed [blank-blank-blank] dogs.

The dogs, of course, are too interested in the company to be interested in their food. In fact, the only interest in the food is from the baby, who keeps having to be redirected because he keeps going over to the dog food and trying to pick it up which may lead to putting it in his mouth. Hello? Hello? Hello?

Finally, everyone is done eating and we leave because we need to go home and put our children to bed. My dear husband asks me why I am so quiet.

I tell him, Because in my opinion, people are more important than dogs.

He agrees.

Still, I berate myself for not telling the [blank-blank-blank] Dog owner (#2, of course) where exactly to take the [blank-blank-blank] dogs.

And that, my friends, is only one of many situations this week in which I have been a coward and for which I am berating myself for not doing a better job of being more assertive and standing up for myself and my children.

I am such a coward.